*****Quite an impressive debut album. Like the awesome production of 'The Love Club EP', 'Pure Heroine' provides more mysterious and darker pop numbers, and topped of with Lorde's great vocals.

Lorde has to be one of my favourite female artists of the decade. Her flawless talent matched with her quirky style and mystifying production assists in become the awesome young shining star she is. The album is nearly a true reflection of what Lorde is all about, and I hope she continues on well into the future in the music industry (albeit currently slaying around the world right now :P).

******Just fantastic. It would have been very difficult to keep up the consistency of The Love Club, instead of five awesome tracks she would have needed ten and I think she's pretty much succeeded in that vein, putting together ten well written tracks that really showcase her talent as a singer and songwriter. The production is excellent and fitting and add to what is one of the best albums of the year imo.

Every track is from enjoyable to amazing but special kudos to the singles, as well as A World Alone and Buzzcut Scene.

Had a listen through the album a couple of days ago, forgive me if I've forgotten a few things, but I never remember the beats getting out of hand (as in wild like the generic music of today), but they complemented the lyrics and mood of the song very well.

In speaking of the lyrics, they were of a sterling quality throughout and a key to the amazing quality of the album. Whether she's singing "my friends and I – we've cracked the code, we count our dollars on the train to the party" in "Royals" celebrating being non-materialistic, to the perplexing and intricate art-form that is "Tennis Court" singing "baby be the class clown, I'll be the beauty queen in tears", to judging the obsession with looks in "White Teeth Teens" ("white teeth teens are out"), to attacking the predictable, mundane nature of current music in "Team" ("I’m kind of over getting told to throw my hands up in the air/ So there"), Lorde is able to sustain such marvellous lyrical quality until the album's conclusion. This is a stunning feat for an artist (who I believe wrote all the songs herself with sole producer Joel Little) of such an age, and will probably contain the best lyrics in an album we've heard this year.

Lorde doesn't seem to be into this contemporary generic type of music, and seems to view the world with a sense of realism and brutality. Maybe it was with these observations that led to her meteoric rise this year, capped off with "Royals" making number one on the Billboard Charts earlier today.

And I must admit, even though Lorde (real name Ella Yelich O'Connor) doesn't have the most stellar voice, she captures the mood well, and is able to replicate this in the live performances I've seen of her. These performances also don't seem to rely on wild shenanigans to be entertaining, but an eerie-ness that keeps the viewer entertained.

My personal favourites were "Royals", "Team" and "White Teeth Teens". Despite this, they were no bad songs and none ever resorted to just being filler tracks. They all have their own unique contributions and points to make and combine to merge into a solid listening experience. Lorde is quoted to have said "the goal for me is to make a body of work that is cohesive" and this is certainly something that has been achieved here. For that, bravo!

In the end, hopefully this is the beginning of a wonderful journey for a precocious new talent. I wonder what she'll follow up "Pure Heroine" with, and I admit that I will be looking forward to it. Let's hope she doesn't turn into Gotye, who really hasn't followed up his international success of "Somebody That I Used To Know".

This will be a difficult album to follow up, and we can only hope that she's still got some great lyrics that she is yet to create (and hopefully that she doesn't descend into performing poor lyrics that music executives push onto her). Ultimately, this seems to be the beginning of a great career, and with Lorde set to appear on the cover of Billboard magazine labelled as "the new queen of alternative", it seems that the bar has been set and it will be up to her to see if she's able to emulate it. Can't wait.

****Her worldwide success still completely baffles me; I never ever would have predicted it for her, at least not from Royals. However it's always nice to see something unexpected do well (as long as it's not a piece of shit) so I'm happy about it. This is a solid debut album but her style is something that's probably never going to set my world on fire, so while I like her and her music, I don't love it.

*****Solid effort but I felt slightly underwhelmed. Although I probably expected too much after the very high quality of the three singles "Royals", "Tennis Court" and "Team". Nothing else on the album matches the quality of those three but in saying that there are no poor songs or any below 4 stars. The production is very intriguing, mysterious, unique and enjoyable. Vocally it's good as well. I haven't paid too much attention to the lyrics apart from the singles and "White Teeth Teens" but the lyrics in those four songs are superb.

There weren't really any lowlights on this album. The three singles are way ahead of the rest of the album but "Ribs", "Glory And Gone" and "400 Lux" would be my favourites of the non singles.

I'll need to give the album a few more listens so I can enjoy it more but for now it gets a 4. I think "The Love Club EP" was better than this but that could easily change with more listens.

*****When I first heard about this album project I was concerned. I think the only expectations initially after "The Love Club" EP broke out was to possibly release another EP later in the year. But then unexpectedly, Lorde had managed to crack the US market and keep "Royals" lodged at the top of the Billboard charts for a lengthy time, capitalisation was inevitable, and all of a sudden, there's an album out in time for the holiday season. And to the credit of all involved, it has proven a triumphant success. But still, this sort of hasty execution leads to the concerning possibility of being botched, and stuffed with filler.

So how does "Pure Heroine" cope? Considering my fears, it goes surprisingly well. I do suppose the mostly minimalistic production helps here, and perhaps the best decision made was to keep it concise at just 10 tracks. It's not really up to scratch for expectations, but it's better off like that than (likely) having some extra filler tacked on.

But then that does end up coming back to haunt it, because with such a short tracklisting it becomes difficult to forgive the filler moments, because they are there by the end. It makes it frustrating because the album starts out so consistently strong but then the closing impressions just don't meet that same standard. But then I make the same criticisms of "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" too. Basically, this isn't as fully realised as it otherwise could be, but with tracks like "Royals", "Team" & "Buzzcut Season" already under her belt, I eagerly await Lorde's next beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy. 4.6